Designer Diary #1: The Primary – Advanced Rules

Welcome to our first Designer Diary entry! This series will focus on our experiences during the game design process. Today we’ll be writing about our new game, The Primary.

Background

The Primary is a light, election-themed game where each player is a candidate during a United States presidential primary election. Over the course of the game, players campaign across the country – gaining influence, running advertisements, lobbying to Super PACs, and more, all in the hopes of winning delegates. Simultaneous action, area control, and action programming mechanics keep each round exciting until the very end!

Status

We feel that there is currently a solid base to the game, with some fun mechanics and lots of positive feedback from local playtesters (so far 21 playtests with 11 different playtesters)

With the hopes to get some blind playtesting done, we just released a Print and Play version of The Primary. If you are interested, click here to sign up!

We also just recorded a podcast this week with Chris Anderson at The Board Game Workshop! It was a lot of fun and a really good learning experience for us. It was great to be able to chat about The Primary and navigating the game design process. Make sure to check out The Board Game Workshop on iTunes and you can also find them on Twitter – @TheBGWorkshop

Issues

We’re currently working to incorporate some new concepts to the “basic” version of the rules. The idea is to have a basic set of rules for new players and those looking for a lighter experience, and an advanced set of rules for those who have played The Primary before or want more complex gameplay.

Our concern is that the current basic set of rules may not provide enough depth or complexity for more serious board game players. Additionally, we feel that we can provide higher replay value with some of the new concepts and mechanics.

Next Steps

We have done two playtests adding some new ideas using variable player powers, objectives, and random event cards. So far they seems to accomplish what we’re hoping to do, but can definitely use some more thought and tweaking.

Thanks for reading our first Designer Diary entry! What else would you like to hear about? What did you find boring? Feel free to share your thoughts and comment below!